Golos can be tricky to build around since he can do literally anything pretty well. The easiest way to make an effective Golos deck is to lean into Golos's 7 Mana Rainbow Wheel Of Death. Before getting into that though, we need to cover some EDH deckbuilding basics.

I think the most useful advice I can give someone who is just beginning to explore the deck-building territory of EDH is to structure your deck and mind your Ratios. By this I mean it is useful to categorize the cards in your deck according to the role they fulfill.

We’ll begin by looking at some core categories that you’ll want to make your deck function effectively. Then I’ll present the Ratios (how many of each category of card) you will want to make a generic Golos deck function effectively. Next, I’ll include a detailed (but not totally complete, because I’d be here all day) catalogue of cards within some of those categories. I’ll also offer up some suggestions and input about some of your specific card choices. Lastly, since I’m about to unpack a lot of information, I will include a brief list of suggestions (see the bottom) for a generically good Golos ‘Shell’ that should be able to support most Golos strategies.

Draw cards are cards that draw you additional cards. There are two subcategories for Draw cards; Draw Spells and Draw Engines.

Draw Spells are one-time use cards that immediately get you 2 to 3 cards.

Draw Engines are cards that might not get you cards immediately but will gradually draw you cards as you play your deck and the game goes longer.

Either variety of Draw card may either be generically powerful or may instead be dependent on synergy (meaning you need to do something specific in order to draw cards). Some cards are hybrids that are generically powerful but get better with additional synergy.

Ramp cards are cards that increase your capacity to produce mana while also accelerating the pace of your mana production. This is generally done by either the card acting as a permanent that creates mana or by finding a land card from your deck and putting it into play. By definition, a Ramp card should be cast within the first 3 turns of the game in order to allow you to cast more/larger spells sooner in the game. For a Golos deck, you should try to ramp once by turn 3 so that you can cast Golos on turn 4 (this won’t always happen, but your deck should be able to do it regularly – see Ratios for more).

There are 3 main subcategories of Ramp; Ramp Spells, Mana Rocks, and Mana Dorks.

Ramp Spells are one-time use cards that find a land from your deck and put it into play (usually tapped).

Mana Rocks are artifacts that produce mana.

Mana Dorks are creatures that produce mana.

Resilience, Speed, and Synergy of Ramp Cards

Ramp Spells are the most Resilient type of Ramp card, as lands are not usually destroyed in EDH. Ramp Spells also trigger Landfall Synergies (Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Omnath, Locus of the Roil, Field of the Dead) which can be incredibly powerful over the course of a longer game. Ramp Spells can also “Color Fix” by finding specific basic lands that you might need to cast a spell or complete the Rainbow to activate Golos’s Rainbow Wheel of Death. However, it should be noted that Ramp Spells are purely slower than Mana Rocks as they almost always bring lands into play tapped.

Removal spells are Instants that destroy a target (typically a creature). These are essential for survival, as you can defend yourself or dismantle an opponent’s plans at a crucial moment and most often during their turn.

The Importance of Instants

Non-instant spells that destroy creatures are never considered Removal because you cannot count on them to save you if your opponent has an explosive turn (for example, they resolve Ghalta, Primal Hunger with Lightning Greaves on the board and they immediately equip the boots and attack you. Only an Instant could respond to the equipping of the boots and destroy Ghalta before it acquired Haste and Shroud.)

Sweepers are spells that destroy or ‘bounce’ (return to hand) all creatures and/or other permanents.

These may also be referred to as ‘Boardwipes’.

Deciding to play Sweepers

The decision to include Sweepers may depend on the state of your playgroup (your Meta). For example, if someone in your playgroup is playing an Ezuri, Renegade Leader deck (or similar) then you will almost definitely need to include Sweepers just to keep the nonsense at bay, because otherwise that opponent will likely overwhelm you with a small mountain of creatures. While that is a fun and powerful strategy, it can be counteracted by the presence of a few Sweepers in your deck. A well-built creature deck with the appropriate amount of Draw will still be able to recover, so this isn’t necessarily going to force your opponent to have a miserable time. Think of Sweepers as a way to buy time against faster, more aggressive decks – something that you’ll need to be wary of since you are playing a 5 color deck with a 5 Converted Mana Cost Commander.

Threats are cards that present a challenge to your opponents, most often in the form of a large creature that is capable of killing them and/or smashing their plans to pieces. Threats may take a different form though, such as enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers, or even lands.

Golos in particular loves threats because of the simple, spicy fact that he can hit them with his Rainbow Wheel Of Death. This makes building a threat-centric Golos deck both incredibly fun and terrifyingly effective.

Support cards are somewhat obscure cards that don’t fulfill any of the usual roles, but instead enhance some aspect of your deck by improving your Engines (such as Draw Engines or other Value Engines like a Token Generator) or Threats.

Generally speaking, support cards are the cards that make your deck go from good to crazy and they often empower you to win the game if uninterrupted.

An example of a support card is Leyline of Anticipation which allows you to cast your spells at any time, but doesn’t do anything by itself.

Almost any Golos deck particularly enjoys the inclusion of incredibly powerful support cards such as Zendikar Resurgent, Mirari's Wake, Nyxbloom Ancient, or other options that increase the amount of mana you can create to use with Golos’s Rainbow Wheel Of Death.

Lands are an obvious inclusion for most Magic decks, but I will mention them anyway.

I am familiar with three main categories of lands; Basic Lands, Utility Lands, and Color Fixing Lands.

Basic Lands are always useful in small quantities for decks that play many Ramp Spells (I recommend this for most Golos decks).

Utility Lands may or may not generate colored mana (for our purposes, we will assume they only generate colorless mana) but they come equipped with a powerful ability.

Color Fixing Lands are lands that are nonbasic but allow us to ‘fix’ our colors by providing us with an option of mana to choose from. These are very helpful for most Golos decks.

Cascading Cataracts

I will mention right now that Cascading Cataracts is the ultimate Color Fixing Land because it can be immediately fetched by Golos and it allows you to consistently Spin The Wheel regardless of your color availability (note that you need 7 mana plus the Cascading Cataracts, which often implies you need 8 lands). If you are plan on playing a deck with few color requirements (mostly one or two primary colors) then this card can singlehandedly enable The Wheel.

The art of Ratios is all about determining what combination of cards from each category makes your deck run the most smoothly.

Please note that these Ratios will not total to 99 cards. This is because you will invariably have extra flexibility to choose how your deck behaves even after establishing functional Ratios. Also keep in mind that although these Ratios do recommend you adhere to the minimum number of cards in each category, you still can choose which cards will fill those slots. The point is not to restrict your options, but instead to create a ‘Shell’ that is reliable enough to power your Threats cards, Support cards, and other cards. Whatever you do, make sure you have at least the minimum number of Draw and Ramp cards. THE MOST IMPORTANT CARDS IN THE DECK ARE DRAW AND RAMP!!!

While I ultimately suggest Ratios resembling the Basic Golos Shell, I will lay out the Ratios for several different Shells;

Template: a sort of baseline beginner’s guide which is commonly promoted as a place to start.

Basic Golos: a modified version of the Template that suites most Golos decks.

Control: a version tailored for a slower game with many Sweepers.

Aggro: a version designed to act quickly and deploy Threats before the opponents are prepared.

Big Mana: a version invested heavily into Ramp with the goal of deploying many end-game Threats.

Mega Mana: an even more extreme version of Big Mana with extremely expensive Threats.

Please remember that any suggestions I make are because I am trying to help. Ultimately, the choices you make with your deck are up to you, and I can only provide constructive criticism based on my own experience and opinions.

Good luck :)

Ratio Fixing

The most effective change to your deck would probably be adjusting the Ratios, especially with regard to your Draw cards. Applying the most basic Template Shell, you want to have at least these three quantities nailed down for a smoother and reasonably powerful deck;

I see a few cards that Recover cards from the graveyard and that is fine but it is not Draw.

Cycling cards are not Draw cards if we define Draw cards as being able to find you 2 or 3 cards and thus help refill your hand.

Mutate

Depending on how strong your Mutate subtheme is, some of your Mutate inclusions may act as engines. However, I must state that Mutate is a VERY risky and even fragile strategy since your Mutate ‘Pile’ of creatures will all be destroyed at once if your opponent uses a Removal spell or a Sweeper. For that reason, I recommend leaning out of the Mutate theme (unless the Mutate card is just straight-up insane, as in the example of Nethroi, Apex of Death).

With that said, playing a Mutate theme is your decision and I totally respect that and if you want to stick to a Mutate theme then by all means do so. I just want to be sure you know that Mutate is a risky strategy that you cannot depend on to fulfill your Ramp and Draw slots (so you’ll just need to supplement it with other cards).

Cut or Include?

At a glance your deck seems like something you have created using just your collection – and that’s great! However, if you want to incrementally upgrade your deck, then I recommend replacing most of the cards in your deck with more powerful options over time.

Here is a list of cards you should probably keep playing:
- Barrier Breach (Removal, because exiling 3 enchantments is helpful in some situations)

Lands

Just as a recommendation, I would suggest the following spread of Basic Lands;

8 Basic Forests

3 of each other Basic Land

The remainder of your lands could be either more basics (which is really, really, risky if you don’t have tons of Ramp – think like 15 Ramp cards and about 12 Basic Forests) or Color Fixing Lands (see the Catalogue for more options). It is rough to have your lands enter the battlefield tapped, but unless you want to either lean into Green or spend a lot of money on lands, you will just have to live with it (I play around 5-10 tapped lands in a normal Golos deck and it isn’t really that bad).

In this section, I will list out an example of the Basic Golos Shell complete with the necessary Ratios and some examples of good/fun cards in each category. I’ll try to keep it relatively Budget sensitive and most of these cards will be relatively random – this won’t be based on any particular theme so don’t expect it to be optimal.

4 weeks ago

cool deck!
i just have a few thoughts - maybe Impulse over Anticipate
also i always felt like Urban Evolution was hard to justify as a 5 drop, Explore is a similar option for 2 mana. but that is personal preference.
also is Soothsaying worth it? i would just run another x mana draw spell.
speaking of which, Blue Sun's Zenith is at least nice to have, because you can draw your whole deck, and then always cast USZ to put it back in your library so even if somehow your opponents stop your wincon, you can have a good chance you won't die at your next draw step. also if you do have infinite mana it is a win con because you can target your opponents.

1 month ago

Phaetion: Thanks for the +1! This is my online brew (waiting for paper to be released) so I haven't really tested it much other than playtesting on tappedout. From over 20 playtesting games by myself here I think that Cromat is a great target to be mutated on since he kinda protects himself so you don't get 2-for-1 that often. Its regeneration and ability to put himself on top of the library is very useful but I don't see myself spending much mana to activate its ability often till mid to late game once my board is established. I also run a significant amount of ramp and usually have a ton of mana by turn 6 so I've never run into any issues with mana.

Jegantha, the Wellspring has definitely came across my mind but its not a great target for mutate since it can only ramp and doesn't protect itself. I could see myself eventually testing it out in the 99 instead. As for card draw, out of 20 playtesting games I've only have 4 games where I kinda ran out of gas but that is remedied with the inclusion of cards like Bonders' Enclave and Urban Evolution. Sylvan Library is also pretty gross in this deck since there are so many ways to gain a ton of life like Majestic Auricorn to let me draw 3 per turn essentially. There are also a surprisingly good amount of recursion mutants and my favorite so far is Lore Drakkis which is broken with cards like Demonic Tutor or Cyclonic Rift.

2 months ago

As a player who specializes in WUBRG big mana, I'd like to add a few suggestions.

Board Wipes

First off, let's look at a robust boardwipe package. I recommend 3 to 6 Sweepers total for a big, slower deck like this.

Disclaimer - while boardwipes can be a big feel bad for some, they are often extremely helpful to prevent slower decks from getting #WREKT by faster, lighter decks. Just make sure your playgroup is okay with you leaning into a slower playstyle that uses boardwipes to keep the nonsense at bay (this will really depend on your meta). Keep in mind boardwipes also help you get in for Voltron damage, assuming you sequence your plays correctly.

Time Wipe: A bit meh with Ramos himself, but keep in mind you can utilize this before Ramos even comes out to save your best creature while clearing the way for big mana spells.

Phyrexian Scriptures: DANGER!!! This one is so slow that it can straight-up get you killed. It might be okay with Ramos, but it could also aggro everybody. I only include it because it synergizes a little bit with Ramos.

Card Draw

So one reason your deck might be "sputtering", as you put it, is simply the lack of Card Draw. With about 12 Card Draw sources you should be more able to keep yourself going and avoid sputtering.

Generically good card draw happens to be mostly black. Don't worry about life loss here, especially if you do end up adding board wipes.

Removal

Your removal package is one of the strong things I see here. My only comment is that Vindicate looks good but its sorcery speed, so a Beast Within or Generous Gift is better in my opinion. Nice job on this section though :D

It's a Trap!!!

Alright, so I'd like to help you identify the "trap" cards. My playgroup calls a card a trap if it looks good in the deck in theory but is actually quite bad in practice.

I strongly recommend against Morophon, the Boundless because you will be getting at best one or two creatures from him. I don't believe your deck is (or should be) tribal enough to take advantage of him.

Ponder and Preordain are unlikely to do as much work as real card draw spells, at least from what I gather skimming over your list. Your deck is going to be naturally slower (and that's fine if you have enough Removal and Sweepers to keep yourself alive) so don't sweat cutting the 1-drops for card draw spells. I would instantly run Painful Truths and Read the Bones in place of these.

Voltron: This is just an opinion, but your Voltron section looks too big. I think the best thing about Ramos as a Voltron commander is his ability to naturally acquire a threatening amount of power as a side effect of you playing a really good Rainbow deck! Lean into that. I know it feels bad to cut some of the artifacts, but you may find it better to have other threats or support for your threats, instead of relying on your commander (who is already a bit of a priority target if I'm being honest). Now granted I am not sure that you've got too much Voltron stuff, but my instincts tell me to avoid committing too much to Voltron. I have seen it end terribly many times and this deck has the luxury of Incidental Voltron, so I would take advantage of what your commander is already doing.

Also, just a general trap for big mana decks is choosing too many "Payload" cards (like Maelstrom Wanderer, Nicol Bolas, etc) while not including enough support for them. I don't think you've got an issue with that, but stay vigliant - you're the only one who can stop you from going overboard.

Other Quick Additions

Kessig Wolf Run: Supports the Voltron, lets you sink that excess mana, and only takes a land slot to boot! Simply a great card for the Voltron portion of your strategy.

Wrap Up

Overall, this is an interesting deck design though I do think it could benefit from a more focused game plan.

Don't get me wrong, this is good stuff - I think you've created a nice first version. Please don't take my criticism of your card choices personally, these are after all just my opinions and I am very passionate about making WUBRG work well. That doesn't mean I know best, though I'm trying to share what tips I can on the topic. At the end of the day choose the cards you want, but please do add more draw spells ;)

3 months ago

Hello all,
I have been playing with the Oko structure deck, that I updated using Affinity For MTG's youtube video, and just bought the Simic Mutology structure deck as well as the Simic Guild Kit, as well as some booster pack cards.
I'm trying to combine them into a 75 card deck, with 15 cards I know to take out for 60.
Based off the cards in these 3 decks I'd like to build the deck around a constant flow of powerful monsters through the +1/+1 counters, as well as overloading on mana and drawing a lot. Some of the main points of damage right now are Oko who can just turn everything into a base 10/10 and distribute lots of +1/+1s, vorel who can double somethings counters, zegana who gives trample, galloping lizrog which can take all the +1/+1s and double them onto himself, nylea's forerunner for trample, progenitors mimic and miming slime to make clones, and wild born preserver for reach and his +1/+1s. But I also have things like coiling oracle/fathom mage to draw a lot, and gyre sage/maraleaf pixie for tons of mana. So I'd like to just find a good strategy in this mess lol.

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